Some animals, especially horses are notorious for wasting feed such as grain which is fed from conventional buckets. Horses in training for special events are fed with various grains and other granular or powdered nutrients during conditioning, and it is typical that the feed is portioned carefully according to the training being completed. The typical manner in which feed is presented involves selecting an appropriate bucket, placing a measured amount of feed in the bucket, then hanging the bucket in the horse's stall, paddock, or corral in which the horse is kept.
A typical full grown horse will feed by gorging its mouth with feed in the bucket, then raise its head from the confines of the bucket before chewing. A grown horse will usually take about two cups of feed in its mouth, then in the process of chewing, lose about 35% of the feed. This causes wastage of feed, and inability for the trainer to accurately meter the amount of feed actually ingested by the horse. Of course different horses, having different physical and psychological characteristics will feed differently, and the trainer may not rely on the otherwise seemingly simple solution of overfeeding the horse by approximately 35% to accommodate for the loss during chewing.
The feed loss typically occurs as spillage into the stall, paddock, or corral, where the lost feed cannot be easily recovered by the animal. Yet the spilled feed will remain, often attracting unwanted rodents such as mice and rats.
It is also a fairly common practice to include measured amounts of medication, feed supplements, vitamins, or other treatment materials to feed for consumption by an animal. If the animal is likely to spill a considerable amount of feed, it is logical that a similar amount of an additive will be spilled as well. This causes a dosage problem, since it becomes difficult to determine whether the animal has actually ingested the desired amount of treatment materials.
It is desirable to avoid feed wastage, to economize on feed, to enable accuracy in dietary portioning, and to minimize attraction to rodents. The present invention, as will be understood below, fulfills this need.